


Yorkshire, 1942

by PudentillaMcMoany



Series: Like a Gambler's Lucky Streak [5]
Category: Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell & Related Fandoms, Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell (TV), Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell - Susanna Clarke
Genre: M/M, One Shot, Slash, Spanish Civil War, War, World War II
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-06
Updated: 2016-04-06
Packaged: 2018-05-31 16:48:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,359
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6478090
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PudentillaMcMoany/pseuds/PudentillaMcMoany
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Childermass loves Segundus and hates fascists.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Yorkshire, 1942

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Nasturtian](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nasturtian/gifts).



> I was asking people to prompt me things for this meme on Tumblr. Nasturtian asked for the prompt no. 16: _Over and over again, till it’s nothing but a senseless babble_ , and I got a bit carried away.

In the warm light of the bedside lamp, gently caressed by the sun setting outside the window, Segundus sits in the middle of the bed like a beautiful gift, knees drawn up to his chest and a blanket on his lap, barefoot and smiling.

“Tiring day?”

Childermass huffs, stumbles towards the bed; throws his cane on the floor and lets himself fall on top of the covers. Some days his leg is fine; if it’s for a short distance, and the weather is good, he can even ride his bike, although Segundus frets.

Today  it won’t cooperate. He has to lift it on the bed with his hands, which makes him feel very old and very cranky and yes, very tired. He gives a noncommittal mumble, burying his face in Segundus’s stomach.

“This bad, huh?”

He grumbles, nuzzling the soft belly of Segundus, the wool of his sweater pleasantly scratching against his beard. “What are you reading?”

Segundus shows him the front of it: “¡Viva Catalonia!”, it says, in big bold letters. “Came in the mail today. From Hollywood,” he explains, rolling his eyes. Childermass tries to conjure up the contempt that Segundus patently wants him to feel for Hollywood, rolls his eyes in turn, but he finds himself distracted. Did Segundus roll his eyes before, he wonders, meaning before _him_ , of course. Or is this another one of those, the minuscule things he has taken from Childermass, like the way he likes poems now and he didn’t before, like the slight Yorkshire tilt in his accent, like all the small signs that make them not so much two separate people anymore, but a strange hybrid being.

“Any good?”

“They say that Gary Cooper is going to play me.”

“I approve of it. He is very handsome.”

“Too handsome!”

“Shush. Who’s playing me?”

“Gregory Peck.”

“Bah!”

“You would have liked someone else better?”

“Humphrey Bogart.”

“If Humphrey Bogart had played _you_ , I would have asked them to make _me_ play myself.”

“Cheeky,” smiles Childermass, groaning himself into a sitting position.

“Hurts a lot?”

“Nothing that I can’t manage. How’s your cough?”

As if on cue, Segundus coughs.

“Poorly, then. Have you taken your medicines?”

“Yes, matron.”

“Cheeky.” He kisses him on the cheek, stays there for a small while so that he can sniff at his hair, bury his nose in its soft waves ( _soft dark waves_ , he had almost thought, only to correct himself; they are more grey than anything now. He likes it, really. Gives him the measure of the time spent together).

“And you know what.”

“What.”

“They gave me a _love interest_.”

“That’s appalling. Who’s playing her?”

“Ingrid Bergman. How do you know it’s a she?”

“John. I suspect you did not tell those big Hollywood producers that you’re a _raging homosexual_.”

“No.”

“Then, _she_ it is.”

“I should have told them.”

“Are you in jest.”

“I am very serious,” says Segundus, with a very unserious smile.

He puts the script away, takes his glasses off. Which might indicate a measure of seriousness, after all.

“I should have told them,” Segundus crawls on him, astride his hips, rocking very gently. When Childermass tries to catch his mouth for a kiss he backs away, sweetly and wickedly. “No, John. Listen to me. I should have told them, I am sorry, Dear Big Hollywood Producers, but we cannot have any of this love interest nonsense. You see, what with the love of my life watching from home.”

“The love of your life being Gregory Peck?” Asks Childermass, and pecks at Segundus’s neck.

“Mmh, Humphrey Bogart.”

“Atta boy,” smiles Childermass, and he’s rewarded by Segundus’s lips on his lips, his tongue in his mouth.

Segundus stops kissing him only to take his sweater off, and then he kisses him again; and then he stops once more, because his shirt is in the way, and he takes that off too. He would kiss him then, but Childermass stops him to cover his shoulders with the quilt, otherwise he will catch a cold, and they can’t have that.

He would very much like to kiss Segundus at this point, but Segundus is already huffing in something like despair, and then he’s crawling to the end of the bed and he’s taking Childermass’s shoes off, and then his trousers, and then Childermass takes off his own sweater (which is not his to be fair, it’s Segundus’s; the green argyle one he gave him for Christmas), and he unbuttons his shirt and then finally, finally he can kiss Segundus, let his knuckles graze his naked sides the way Segundus likes, the way that makes his breath hiss, that still makes him laugh, a little self-conscious, after all these years.

They move under the covers, which takes some maneuvering, as it hurts his leg a little bit and Segundus frets, as he does, although it’s only in a half-distracted, half-dazed way, in the middle of kisses, and Childermass thinks, _I would gladly take a bullet for this man_ , except that he did, in fact, take a bullet for this man, once, in Spain, and this is why his leg sometimes hurts and he has to drag a cane around (the cane is good for frightening pigeons as well), but yes. He once took a bullet for this man, and he has fought in a war for his sake, not to mention that he was almost hanged, and he cannot quite believe it, that something as trivial as a kiss under the duvets tasting somewhat of cough syrup can be as electrifying as those heroic feats, as is fighting a war for your love (although, if he’s honest, he was also fighting for Spain, and of course against fascism.)

“What are you thinking about?”

"Fascist pigs,” he murmurs against Segundus’s hip.

“Whatever works for you, love.”

They laugh, Childermass a bit choked under the stuffy covers, so that he has to come up, and Segunds has this serious solemn face, and holds his head very still and he gives him a kiss, and he asks, “can I?” (though of course he can, whatever he wants, he always can, as if there’s any need to ask), and rolls him gently on his side where is leg doesn’t hurt, presses a finger inside him, and there.

It is not for the fact that Segundus is moving said finger in extenuating, delightful circles inside him (though these things are certainly easier to think about while your lover gently eases in you, after a while, another spit-slick finger, and hits a particular spot, and makes you cry out loud against the pillow); there’s that, of course but also: Segundus’s ragged breath against his shoulder, and the graze of his teeth. Segundus’s voice when he says: “I am-”, and he can’t quite finish what he was going to say, and then, when Segundus’s prick slips inside him (god, he _loves_ Vaseline), a thread, almost frantic, of _Iloveyou_ , murmured feverishly against his skin until it’s nothing more than a babble.

Childermass thinks, then, that magic is all well and good, but what use does it have when here in this world you can ride a bike, and conduct an action of perfect _guerrilla_ to conquer a church in Zaragoza?  Most importantly, when you can have John Segundus wear glasses, and write novels, and have Gary Cooper play him? And Gary Cooper is handsome, of course, but he will never be as preternaturally beautiful as John in the morning, drinking coffee while reading a newspaper, with slippers on his feet- or even barefoot, if it’s warm, or even, for all that matters, what does Gary Cooper know, or all the magicians in the world, of having Segundus fretting over his leg when he’s sick in the first place?

When it’s over, and Segundus is dozing off on his shoulder, he finds himself thinking that he shouldn’t be, but he’s always surprised, and a small bit guilty, to discover how little he misses their century (except maybe for when he remembers that this century dragged them into not one, but two wars in rapid succession, and has something as disgusting as _fascists_ ).

 

**Author's Note:**

> I hope everything is historically plausible!


End file.
